Black Sabbath is an English heavy metal band formed in 1968 in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom, originally comprising Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass), and Bill Ward (drums). In the early ’70s they were the first to pair heavily distorted, sonically dissonant blues-rock at slow speeds with lyrics about drugs, mental pain and abominations of war, thus giving birth to generations upon generations of metal bands that followed in their wake. They are often credited with creating the Heavy Metal genre.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ……. Or the late seventies in Gloucester to be more precise, a young Dr Foster would happily lie on the floor of the family sitting room copying various album covers into his sketch pad whilst older, long haired brother Boney Al would stomp around, headbanging and singing out of tune to the songs on said LP’s (before his gang of proto biker mates would call for him & off he’d pop on his Suzuki C50 to ummm raise hell). Fast forward to the present and Boney Al is a happily married man living in Glasgow (possibly still stomping around, singing out of tune & headbanging although with considerably shorter hair) and Dr Foster has long since packed away his pencil, pad and dreams of becoming the new Roger Dean (look it up Kids) and is now contently writing articles like this one. Those days, however, do hold fond memories for me as does the music that soundtracked my artistic aspirations, so when the chance to review the back catalogue of one of the pivotal bands of that time came up, well for me it was a chance to revisit a (for the most part) very happy childhood.

Black Sabbath were one of the best selling rock bands of their generation and considering the now celebrity status of their former lead vocalist (one John ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne) and the ongoing popularity of heavy metal, it’s hardly surprising that digital re issues of the Ozzy era LP’s are now being released. The first three albums ‘Black Sabbath’, ‘Paranoid’ (which featured probably their best know tracks ‘Paranoid’, ‘War Pigs’ and ‘Iron Man’) and ‘Masters Of Reality’ were rolled out earlier in the year so now it’s time for the second wave, ‘Vol 4’, ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’, ‘Sabotage’, ‘Technical Ecstasy’ and ‘Never Say Die’ to emerge from their analogue tomb . Just as the toll of time hasn’t been particularly kind to me (hair loss, middle age spread etc) neither has it to these releases. Listening back to these albums highlight how things have changed since they were first released, with music becoming more politicised and lyrically more inventive. Unfortunately, most of mid period ‘Sabbath’ falls either to the ‘evil pixies of the forest’ type which was so wonderfully lampooned in Spinal Taps ‘Stonehenge’ or the ‘Big Bottom’, ‘Sex Farm’ misogyny found in the likes of ‘Dirty Woman’ (Technical Ecstasy). Actually part of the problem with revisiting these albums that if you have seen the aforementioned film it’s is hard to listen to Black Sabbath without having a bit of a chortle as, even though the bands life did not directly influence Rob Reiners classic, (although looking a Sabbaths history, it easily could have) musically ..well let me put it this way, you could easily stick a Sabbath tack on ‘Smell The Glove’ and it wouldn’t sound out of place or visa versa. In fact there are songs from most of these LP’s that probably would’ve been dismissed by the Spinal Tap crew as to obviously comedic for their spoof.

The albums do decline in quality as the band themselves fell apart due to drug and alcohol abuse with ‘Vol 4’ and ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ on a par, standing head and shoulders over the rest. That said most the albums have at least one stand out song, with Vol 4 it’s ‘Changes’, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath has the title tack, Sabotages ‘Hole In The Sky’, Technical Ecstasy ..err doesn’t really have one and Never Say Die’s punkish titular track is a definite high point in a very poor LP.

Although it was great to listen to the likes of ‘Sabbra Cadabra’, ‘Snowblind’ and ‘Sympton Of The Universe’ again, overall I think it may have been better idea to ‘let sleeping bats lie’ and just compile a greatest hits collection instead.